Wii uDraw Studio Review

The Wii's newest accessory is reminiscent of Mario Paint. Having trouble deciding whether or not to buy it? Read this to see what we think.

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What is Wii uDraw Studio?

The uDraw Studio is an attachment for the Wii. It is a drawing board with a stylus, that the wii remote sits in. It allows players to draw, and play games with the pen using both a clickable button on the pen, and the pen's tip. Studio is the pre-bundled art game.

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Price

The average retail price is $69.99, pretty much everywhere you go. I suppose the price is set by Nintendo, though Wal-Mart has it for a whopping $69.96! For what you get, I suppose it's a decent deal, because there is a game with it; but for an accessory, some may consider it pricey.

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Ease of Use

Putting the Wii remote in the board is not hard, but it gets annoying because you cannot control the main Wii menu with it installed in the board. The hard part is finding a flat surface to keep the board on so you can get the most use out of it. The pen is attached to the board so there's no risk of losing it, because believe me, most people would otherwise. A strange compartment on the back of the board, with a door like a battery cover, left me confused for a second. It looks like it takes batteries, but doesn't. It uses the power of the wii remote to function, which is good, but why the heck is that there? Even if I wanted to put batteries in it, it wouldn't work. The board and pen are designed more for a child's hands than adults, with a "chunky" design, instead of sleek and slim.

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Game Selection

As of the release, there are only three games compatible with the uDraw Studio, one of which is a game by the same name, that comes bundled with it. The other two games are are: Pictionary and Dood's Big Adventure. These two games are priced at $29.99.

uDraw Studio is a basic art game where you can draw whatever you want, and you have the option to save your creations to an SD card. Pictionary is a play on the classic board game. Dood's Big Adventure allows you to create/draw a custom character or use the default "dood" to take him through 60 levels.

As the game selection improves, we will add the list and change this rating. Right now, all the games are made by the same company, THQ. We imagine more games will come along as other companies jump on the uDraw train.

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My Personal Thoughts

My husband and I purchased this for our seven year old son for Christmas. It was one of the things he'd been practically begging for, and while we don't usually cave to his whims, we enjoy our Wii system and thought it'd be an excellent way to take it up a notch, as a family. He played with it once before deciding it wasn't for him, and I asked him to play again. He finds it frustrating to play with, and honestly none of us play with it. However, I didn't give this a totally bad review because:

it's still new and doesn't have many games. The longer it's around, the more games they'll develop for it, and I'm sure we'll find something that grabs our attention.

we only played with the game that comes bundled with it: uDraw Studio.

He's seven. His attention span is, well, not the best in the world.

He wanted it for the Pictionary game, which we don't have yet.

At this point, after owning it less than a month, I want to say it's been a waste of $70 for me; but each family/gamer is different. I'm not going to trade it in for credit anywhere yet, because I'm stubborn enough to give it a chance. It certainly has potential to elevate gaming, so my verdict: wait it out a bit.